Soggy Party

The skies have opened on us again and wouldn't your know, it rained on our garden party at city hall. On the one hand, I was relieved it was not swarming weather. I needed a break because the bees in both hives tried to take off yet again yesterday. They are very twitchy. J and I caught them just in time, sprinkling the faces of both hives with sugar water, re-uniting the queen with her hive by unceremoniously tipping her into the middle of it and blocking off most of the hive entrance of the calm hive to help prevent the raiding that was going on. I think the calm hive is not fond of living next to the twitchy hive and they may abandon us too. So... I am on swarm watch and trying to learn every swarm prevention measure there is. It's good to be doing this deep learning, but when I look at the photos of the bees swarming I get all anxious again. The bees were quiet today. I am thankful for that.

Today was tinged with a different kind of anxiety--a bit of performance anxiety with a bit of maquillage malfunction (I tried a new white makeup which was crap) and getting to the venue anxiety (I thought the cab got lost). We had some lovely singing and music at the garden party--good company, good snacks. The garden is really starting to look great. It's so good to have this happening at our city hall. Brian Campbell gave me some anti-swarming tips, the queen bee made some new friends and when it really started to pour at 3:30 pm we packed it up and called it a day.